


Business and Pleasure

by VentiKaffee



Category: WildStar (Video Game)
Genre: Aurin, Awkward Phone Call, Begging, Blood, Cassian - Freeform, Drugs, Exile, Human, Immobility, Mechari, Predator/Prey, Psychological Torture, Revenge, Sadism, Terrible Humor, Torture, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:03:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6891301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VentiKaffee/pseuds/VentiKaffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sintreri's drugs don't agree with each other or her and lead to a rather intense nightmare regarding an escaped assassination target.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Side Effects May Include

She knew something was off as soon as she entered the front room. It was a strange presence in the air, a subtle scent that faded every time she almost identified it. It was like rubber or metal, but light and edged with something akin to cologne. Each time the scent resurfaced it was something different, but always subtle, always fleeting.

Her tall ears swiveled and twitched, alert for odd sounds as well. She thought she caught one, but couldn’t be sure. The icebox hummed incessantly in the corner. A scaled down holoreplica generator buzzed and flickered occasionally, its batteries requiring replacements soon.

The tuckered scientist dropped her pack on the table with a thud, unchecked impact causing a few boxes of mixed components to rattle. A gloved hand rubbed hard at heavy eyes, then pinched the bridge of a button nose.

“Ya need to relax, Sin.” She chuckled to herself and shook her head.

Perhaps it couldn’t be helped; the last few days had been particularly stressful. There had been plenty of work, but none of it felt rewarding. Her latest mission that put her behind enemy lines had been unsuccessful, resulting in the loss of an important target, which was what she had spent the next few days gathering intel about just so someone ‘better suited’ could clean up her mess.

She didn’t need to just relax. She needed real sleep.

The mission’s failure had left a pit in her stomach that resulted in nightmares the youth had been too embarrassed to talk about. Vivid and frightening dreams in which her previous targets came back for revenge, in which the shards in her dresser drawer rattled angrily and spoke to her.

Just recalling them made her feel sick. She shook her head and sighed. Not tonight. The blue furred aurin spun about, leaving her pack of unfinished work on the table to retreat to her bedroom. Two suspended lanterns circled in a lazy fashion above and cast a dim light across the mess that was her room.

Her attention bee-lined the bottom drawer of the very same dresser where her once comforting trophies now haunted her. She shook off a shiver and lifted her gaze to the top drawer. As she pulled it open, that odd scent from before resurfaced. She gave the drawer’s contents a wary sniff, concerned that something she’d purchased had gone bad or worse that she’d been sold a faulty product.

The bottles and containers therein smelled as usual, a welcoming aroma in four parts: plastic, herbal, chemical, and sweet. A small bottle of dull colored capsules was retrieved and promptly dropped as lifting her head revealed something in the small round mirror propped up on the dresser.

A pair of telltale yellow eyes had shone briefly in the darkness where now there was nothing.

“F..fuck…” The aurin muttered, stooping to retrieve the dropped container. Dreams were one thing, but now hallucinations? The cap was popped loose before she’d fully straightened, bottle tipped to dump two capsules into her open palm. They might mean oversleeping, but she’d certainly get the rest she needed.

After replacing the cap on the container and the container within the drawer, she pushed it to and turned to fetch a drink from the icebox. Instead the addled aurin circled to face a vaguely illuminated figure.

At eye level she found herself uncomfortably acquainted with his torso, an unnaturally uniform column of sectioned plates designed to provide ample protection and mobility, curtained by a dark cloak which shimmered to reveal light-refracting nanites at work.

She stumbled backwards into the wooden dresser even before her gaze rose to meet a surely yellow pair of glowing eyes. Exhaustion fled as a sinking dread clawed at her insides and widened her eyes with obvious shock and fear.

“Sintreri Palebloom.” The mechari sampled her name like an exquisite piece of candy.

Her wide eyes managed to be torn from the threatening presence to dart to the wardrobe behind him where her armor and weapons would be.

“You’ve quite a collection.”

Her attention snapped back.

As if to emphasize the reference, he lifted a hand and pulled back the cowl that hid his glowing soul crystal. It managed a greater light than the orbiting lamps and the aura it emitted resembled a flame in slow motion.

An empty silence stretched between them for a long moment until the female made a sudden dash for the front room. She actually escaped his range for a moment before a click heralded the acute pain in her right shoulder.

The nanos in the dart acted swiftly, riding on her adrenaline. She stumbled into the table, struggled to right herself, and made two unsteady steps toward the exit before finally collapsing to her hands and knees. A balled fist indicated she’d retained a subconscious grip on the drugs previously retrieved, which she now abandoned in order to use both hands to continue scrambling away.

A heavy foot pressed between her shoulder blades until her arms gave out and ground her ribs into the floorboards.

“It’s truly an impressive collection,” the Dominion robonoid continued. “though I could not help but to notice you do not have any yellow.” His tone was unsettlingly calm and on the verge of sardonic.

The Exile under foot attempted to rise, her struggles becoming less effective and more panicked as the serum robbed more and more of her mobility.

“I’m honestly surprised and a tad disappointed.” He continued, digging his heel into her spine until she coughed a strained squeak of pain. “Here’s a perfectly good yellow crystal delivered right to your home, and you turn away from it.”

He leaned down, compressing her chest further and forcing out what little breath remained with a pained wheeze. His angular face drew intimately close to her quivering ear, metal cheek brushing against downy fur.

“What’s the difference?” The mechari inquired, proximity issuing a shudder and whimper from his prey. “Could it be that you’re afraid?”

His foot finally relented, and the aurin sucked in such a sudden and large gulp of air that she choked on it. The weight of the silence that followed indicated he actually expected an answer, but she knew nothing she could say that would spare her life.

“Of course.” He answered for her, dropping to one knee and grabbing a fistful of bright blue hair. “Every one of those crystals was stolen. Every victory was sown in shadow and surprise. You are a coward..” His fist yanked hard enough on her hair to lift and tilt her head back.

By now the nanites had been distributed throughout her system, rendering her immobile. She could only grunt in pain and protest. Her fingers twitched and flexed as she still fought to move.

“But, what is it they say..” He added in a venomous tone as his free hand snaked around to her throat. “To catch a thief?” Three lethal blades extended suddenly from between his knuckles, tips glowing a plasmic yellow to match his soul.

The tips grazed her flesh, leaving pain and thin streaks of crimson in their wake. He was clearly amused to discover an ounce of fight left in her as evidenced by his dark chuckle at her body’s faint wriggle.

“What trophy could I take from you?” He mused aloud. “Your ears? Your tail?” The claws shifted, leaving her neck to rise and linger dangerously near her right eye, one tip so close that her vision could not focus it. “Your eyes?” She felt hot tears begin to form.

“How about..” The blades retreated into their metal sheath as quickly as they had appeared. A startled yelp pierced the low hum of the room as the aurin was flipped onto her back.

Sinking fear threatened to make her sick as she was forced to face the monstrous construct. He straddled her waist and arched unnaturally over her limp body to place his face barely centimeters from hers. Glowing yellow orbs bored into teary grey.

“Your dignity?” He suggested, mouth grinding into a wicked grin that revealed pointed dentata. “Your confidence? Your hopes and dreams?” Cold fingertips caressed her cheeks and rested gingerly on either side of her jaw as he cupped her face to his.

“I will destroy you.” He promised, one hand leaving her face to trail down her neck and over her collarbone to her heaving chest. “I will break you so thoroughly that the mere sight of another mechari will paralyze you with insurmountable fear.”

He sat upright and his fingers lifted from her body to allow room for the hidden blades to extend once again. His left hand was also removed from her face to grasp her shirt and pull it from her skin so the blades could make easy work of the fabric.

“And when you hear my name, your heart will drop, your breath will catch, your head will swim. You will never forget. You will never be the same. You will be utterly broken, useless.”

The tears in her eyes had grown so that she could no longer see. They burned and cascaded down the sides of her face in hot streaks. “Please, no..” She finally uttered as his blades sliced through the last threads of her top and left her torso bare. A light dragging of the tips back up resulted in a rush of pain and streaks to match those on her neck.

“P-please!” Her voice rose at the burning sensation. “I won’t do it again! I-I’ll retire. I’ll never even go near 'nother mechari. I- Nnngh!” The tips traced the same path back down, buried into her flesh enough to force spasms from her paralyzed form. Blood welled and ran down her sides soaking into her sliced garments.

“I’m sure you will.” He agreed and retracted his blades again. He flexed his lengthy fingers and his forearm sounded several clicks and whirs.

“Let’s begin, shall we?”


	2. Wake Up Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sintreri receives an unexpected call from a guy she met at a party.

Atellus sipped his beer, sitting on the stairs to his front door. With the sound of metal on metal and a pair of high pitched beeps, he watched his bruiser bot and artillery bot playing, though the latter didn’t seem to enjoy being pounced upon. He chuckled, shaking his head and pulling out his datachron.

Not for the first time, he contemplated about contacting that ridiculous blue aurin. Their post-party encounter a few weeks ago was rather awkward, sure. Yet he had to admit she was enjoyable company, something he was short on.

This absolutely had nothing to do with the fact he’d seen her naked on multiple occasions. Absolutely not. That’s preposterous. He definitely wasn’t blushing in the slightest bit when he hit the button to initiate a call.

The familiar sound of an incoming call beeped to life, catching the attention of both aurin and mechari. Sin recognized the tune as a generic default that played when the contact didn’t have a set ringtone. The latest addition to her address book immediately popped into her mind and a cold wave of dread washed over her.

“He’s no one important!” she blurted, though she knew the words to be futile.

“I’m not convinced.” the robonoid purred, reaching for the device.

He really wasn’t, but she had only just met the guy and the thought that he could be brutally murdered or worse for going to a party with her left a sick knot in her gut that worsened the pain. She made a lunge for the datacron, too intent on stopping him from hurting someone else to wonder how the paralytic toxin had worn off so suddenly and completely.

The floor shifted and the room around her spun. Her hands reached out to an image that warped and faded. She slammed into something hard.

The familiar button-eyed face of a rowsdower plush faded in and out of focus. It took her another moment to notice it was upside down, and then another to correct herself that she was, actually. Bleary eyes scanned her field of view. This was definitely her room, but she couldn’t recall going to bed.

Worried that her nightmare had been real, a hand shot to her abdomen. No wounds, but the sudden jolt of fear that accompanied the thought made her stomach twist. She became vaguely aware of her datacron going off, and the additional thought that he might actually be calling only made her sicker.

She let herself tumble from the bed and made an awkward, but obviously repeated, crawl to the small waste can near her dresser. She hugged the flower printed bucket like a faithful friend while her body ejected the unsatisfactory combination of drugs, and whatever she’d had for lunch prior. Even after there was nothing left to be rid of she continued to heave.

As the prickly fog of poison and emotion lifted, she became increasingly aware of the incessant ringing of her mystery caller. She decided to let it go to voicemail in case it was someone asking about work. She didn’t need them knowing she was sick on top of everything else.

The device played back an overly chipper recording of her apologizing for not answering which included visual if they had that feature enabled.

She heaved again.

He waited, and waited. Waited some more. Perhaps he was being weird. Perhaps she didn’t want to talk to him. It was definitely a stupid idea.

So lost in that spiral of thoughts, the Cassian exile jumped, fumbling his datachron and sloshing his spirits, both in the bottle and in his form. “Tristan’s teeth,” he murmured, fortunately before the tone indicating he could leave a message. Should he leave one? Would that be awkward?

For that matter, why did he even call? Were anyone watching, no doubt the man would have paled. A small voice in his head was furious. Why am I, a grown man of thirty, acting like a loon.

Because it’d been almost a decade since he’d had a friend that didn’t communicate via beeps and wasn’t designed for warfare, perhaps?

“H-hey, uh, Sin. Just wanted to let you know I’m free for a few weeks, so if any of your, ah, parties are coming up, perhaps we could go to one together. Sorry if that sounds weird. Take care.”

Hopefully the message went through. He unscrewed his eyes and downed the last quarter of his GBR. Scions bless me.

As much as she had expected it to be him, she still jumped when his voice came through. For a split second she berated herself for having voicemail feedback enabled even though it was perfectly normal for her to have it on when alone at home.

The aurin managed a small chuckle before noticing the mess in front of her smelled like chemicals and stomach acid. Her sensitive nose wrinkled and she carefully shoved the can away.

“H-hey, uh..” she echoed in a hoarse voice, laughing again. Did he just stutter? Two weeks. Two weeks and he calls her stuttering like some tail-tucked pansy. She couldn’t wait to take him to another party.

With everything going on so far this week, she couldn’t think of any interesting events. After all, she didn’t plan on attending any. Surely there was something, but most of the Shades Eve shindigs would have come and gone by now, and most people would be partied out. There was a small twinge of regret that she hadn’t invited him to more of the holiday festivities she’d partaken in, which snowballed into a heavy sigh as she realized she spent the last few days cleaning up a mess that shouldn’t have happened - days that could have been spent on more spooky parties.

Grasping the edge of the bed, she pulled herself up onto unsteady legs. The room teetered a bit, but most of the nausea was gone. She snatched up her datacron, which now flashed a notification for a missed call and message. Thankfully there were no additional calls or messages from superiors …yet. Using her free hand to support herself against nearby surfaces when needed, she made her way to the icebox and fetched a bottle of supposedly fresh springwater that always tasted the way toothpaste smells. She popped the reclosable cap with her teeth and gargled a mouthful as she shambled toward the front door.

Once outside, she spat into the bushes next to the uneven stone steps then sat upon them with a small ‘oomph’. The brisk air of her skyplot was refreshing and gently caressed her senses from their groggy state. As she relaxed and rehydrated, she played the voicemail back one more time just for giggles, then pressed the callback button. Given she probably looked a mess, she decided to keep video disabled for now.

The Cassian huffed, setting the bottle down and pinching the corners of his eyes. He was really out of practice with this friend stuff. If he was ever even good at it to begin with. He just wanted to kill some time and ignore the meeting he’d had with the mechari.

His datachron beeped out its notification, and he curiously glanced at it. Ah. “The Naked Aurin” was calling. How convenient. Let him make a fool of himself on the message didn’t she. That small voice in his head laughed; he would have made a fool of himself even had he answered.

Waving his hand to silence the thoughts in his head, he accepted the call – wisely, perhaps, without video. Milliseconds felt like centuries as he ran through conversation paths in his head. What should he say? How did he not sound awkward when talking to a young girl from the planet he helped ensure the death of? For all he knew he killed her bloody parents.

He stood suddenly, though his bots failed to care as they were in another bout of wrestling, and took a deep breath. “Afternoon, Palebloom,” he said, trying to lapse into his Exile accent. “How’s business?”

Her expression sunk briefly, and was quickly replaced with a practiced smile out of habit though the man on the other end could not see. “The usual.” she answered without elaborating on what the ‘usual’ even was. A bit of sleep still lingered in her voice, so she cleared her throat before continuing.

“If ya wanted to party, ya should’ve called sooner!” She picked up where the voicemail left off rather than sticking to the newer topic, trying to wrest control of the conversation as soon as possible. She added a girlish giggle meant specifically to prod at his anxiety and set him on defense.

His eyes narrowed at the laughter, but he took a steadying breath and brushed it aside. The change of topic was actually reassuring, as he was no marksman at smalltalk.

“Well, I didn’t intend to get into the situation I was in, otherwise I would have called sooner. I kinda missed most of Shade’s Eve, sadly,” he says with a shrug that bordered on audible, given the context.

His nerves rushed up to the surface of his thoughts but he gave them a good mental stamping. “Besides, I owe you for being a disappointing and probably offputting host last time we were together. At least this time you won’t wake up starving, huh?” 

Oh Scions that sounded awkward and had implications – another steadying breath. Friendship wasn’t difficult. It definitely had to be the guilt of what his kind had done to her own weighing on his mind.

She was about to inquire about his missed holiday when he continued. She gladly let him speak; the more he did and the less she did, the better. Though curiosity and a faint desire to sympathize nagged her to ask what had kept him from partying and made his tone sound so heavy, she rolled with the lighter topic for security.

“That all depends..” she insisted, dragging the words as if implying something, though she gave no clue as to what. She’d rather he guess. She let them linger just long enough to likely make him uncomfortable and just before she expected him to ask what it depended on, she piped up loudly.

“I’m afraid I’ll be too busy for company today and tomorrow, but we’ll see about after that, hm?”

“I figured as much, didn’t give you much advance warning. Sorry for bothering you, I wasn’t aware you were busy.” That’s not true, he worried about that exact thing. What a good liar he was, pretending he didn’t help murder her planet. “If you need any help, you can count on me. I’ll even do it for free, for such a friendly little lady. Take care, Palebloom.”

She needed help. But she wasn’t about to admit that to an almost stranger. She wasn’t about to admit to another paranoid Exile that she bungled an assassination attempt on a Dominion interrogator. She didn’t admit to even those who had assigned her the task of gathering intel that she could use some help. The last thing she needed was more reason for people to think her incapable. This could trash her whole reputation.

She realized she had taken longer than she liked to respond, which was longer than immediately. “Please call me Sin.” She hoped any pause he noticed would taken as unspoken exasperation. “Jeeze, you sound like one of those men in Cassian romance novels. We’re talkin’ getting higher than a vind on loftite and then eating everything in your pantry, not dinner at a five star restaurant.”

The words left her mouth before she fully realized why he might be so awkward. Shit, she’d assumed he was just beating around the bush about getting into her pants after realizing he missed a golden opportunity last time. Was he seriously well… serious about this?

“I hope not. I haven’t the cash for that kind of luxury,” he says with an honest chuckle. “I apologize, I’m used to people with a preference for their surnames.”

Oh lovely. Just give a clue. Your new friend would love to know you’re a, “damn Dommie.”

“I’m sorry for being a tightarse too. Haven’t had much time to kick back. Feels like it’s all been chaos since – since I thawed.” Don’t notice the pause.

“You keep saying that.” she agreed, amusement in her tone to mask the relief. “But, really, who among us has?” The question was likely rhetorical, after all she continued to speak not long after posing it.

“They put me right to work soon as I was able. Which was fine by me, I’d rather be busy.” That was more than she wanted to say. She was sympathizing. The conversation was getting comfortable.

“Hate to cut this short, but like I said, busy. We’ll talk again, alrighty?” Her finger hovered over the end call button, only waiting for his own goodbye to be polite.

“Of course. You’ve another apology from me. Clear skies, Sin.”

He needed another beer.


End file.
